


Misconception of memory

by withered



Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [40]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky pretending to be Bucky, M/M, Memory stuff, Not Steve Friendly, Not Wanda Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Pre-WinterIron, not team Cap friendly, recovering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 07:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: To say that he has memory problems would be stating the obvious, but people seem to have several misconceptions about what that means.The first, and most grating on his patience, has been the insistence that he is Bucky Barnes.





	Misconception of memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [White_Rabbits_Clock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Rabbits_Clock/gifts), [chibi_luna_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_luna_chan/gifts).



 

 

To say that he has memory problems would be stating the obvious, but people seem to have several misconceptions about what that means.

The first, and most grating on his patience, has been the insistence that he is Bucky Barnes.

Which he is, _technically_.

Just not the Bucky Barnes Steve wants him to be.

They may have the same face, the same set of skills, the same voice, and sometimes when he doesn’t dream about hands wet and sticky with blood, he thinks he remembers who Bucky is: One of three kids, the middle one, and the only boy; his shoulders would hold Rebecca up; his arms would squeeze Tallulah in a hug when he had nightmares; his cheek would be kissed by his Ma whenever she saw him between one job and another.

He’d been the man of the house from age seven ever since his Pop kicked it; he’d been Stevie Rogers’ best friend after a playground brawl; he’d been the sole survivor of Hydra’s first experimentation into the Super Soldier Serum, and he’d been the only casualty in the Howling Commandos.

He likes girls, Steve insists.

He never finished school, didn’t care for it. He preferred the factories. He enlisted because he was brave, and it was the right thing to do.

Everyone thought he’d died.

The last is about the only thing Steve has right.

(He was good at math, he liked science; he only took the girls out dancing for an excuse to see the Stark Expo after. He hated the factories, but he hated how haggard his Ma looked even more. And he didn’t enlist, he’d gotten a letter and been told to go, and then he did…)

Not that he’d ever tell Steve, not that Steve would even believe him, he thinks with a snort.

Despite escaping Hydra and eking out a life for himself in Bucharest for several months all while hiding from them both, his problematic memory seems reason enough to dismiss any opinion that ‘Bucky’ wouldn’t have had.

And that’s why it grates – why it tries on his patience.

Because otherwise, being Bucky Barnes is easy; being Bucky, with his confident swagger and Brooklyn twang is far better than being the Winter Soldier.

(“I don’t know, Frosty, I’m kind of a fan of the murder strut,” Tony leers. “And I’ve always liked my compliments with a touch of fatalism.”

He snickers, exaggerating the Russian roll of his words, “You’ve got problems, kitten.”

“Only with my pants, wanna help fix that?")

Because Bucky gets to be more than a weapon, he gets to have the life he didn’t have all those years ago – stolen by poverty and a war he wanted no part in – all on the dime of one of the many men whose life he’d had a hand in ruining.

And that’s the second thing – a misconception that has him biting his tongue so often than he tastes blood far more than he ever did with Hydra – because no matter how much Steve insists that _Tony owes you,_ the truth is that _he doesn’t._

He likes to think he knows himself better than Steve, and he can say, confidently, whether he’d been the Bucky Barnes from the Forties or just the Bucky Barnes that exists right now, he knows Tony Stark doesn’t owe him anything.

Which is another matter altogether trying to explain that to Tony; unlike Steve, Tony didn’t walk on eggshells with Bucky’s presence, actually, it was closer to tearing out the floor with a sledgehammer:

 “I blew your arm off, I give you a new one.”

“That’s not -”

“An eye for an eye,” Tony says with a sardonic flourish, “or in this case, an arm for an arm.”

“I killed your parents,” he protests.

“I almost killed you.”

Bucky scowls, “Almost being the operative word.”

“ _Would have_ , is a better one,” Tony retorts, and that’s – fair – if anyone thought a pair of Super Soldiers stood a real chance against a veritable walking, flying, arsenal in a suit of the most advanced technological marvel, they were idiots. “What you do – under Hydra or not – that’s your path and your responsibility to deal with. What I do – and how I make up for it – is mine. Do you want this arm or not?”

And for the first time, Bucky realized – he could say no.

Because the third misconception about his faulty memory is about others making choices for him – like he doesn’t remember how to make them for himself – like he can’t be trusted to – and Tony’s apparently not a fan of that kind of micromanaging.

(Bucky looks at the empty shoulder mooring, and the Hydra arm sitting in an open box on the workbench, and thinks of the Hydra operatives still remaining – still hiding, and says, “Yes…yes, please.”

And Tony smirks like he knows what Bucky had been thinking, and says, “Then, let’s get to work.”

“Whoa, wait a second, Tones,” Rhodes interjects, and his relationship with Tony is completely different to the one with Bucky and Steve because unlike Steve, Rhodes _knows_ his best friend – and he knows that twinkle in his eye can only mean trouble. “Do you know how much noise this’ll make?”

The Hydra arm came with conditions, take it, and return to service; it’s another letter demanding his life, a draft in the form of his only way to get his revenge on Hydra.

To refuse the arm is to give the government the middle finger.

From the grin on Tony’s face, apparently, it isn’t his first time: “Then let’s make some fucking noise.”)

And if Tony weren’t so enthusiastically passionate about the arm’s capabilities, its design, its fabrication and attachment, Bucky would think Tony was being forced to do this – if not for the way he waves his arms in excitement, grins wide when they figure out a work around to a problem; the way he’ll fake a swoon when the Princess casually throws in an idea or Bruce reminds him of a limitation or Doctor Cho corrects an error.

Despite everything that’s happened, Tony _wants_ to help which also means Bucky knows when Tony doesn’t, and that leads him to misconception four: the Rogues.

It would be a small mercy if Steve had only been insistent for Bucky’s sake that Tony help him, unfortunately now that Steve’s gotten big, small isn’t even in his vocabulary anymore.

The ego, the entitlement; the fuck-ups, they’re bigger, and Tony – unapologetic and unimpressed – is entirely too aware of that.

He’d paid the price in almost every way since the “Civil War” and Bucky can’t imagine Tony wanting to do it all over again. (Bucky sometimes catches the man rubbing absently at his chest sometimes, and Bucky feels a phantom ache in his.)

So, Bucky does what he can to make sure Tony doesn’t.

Rhodes helps. Pepper. Carol. King T’Challa. Fury. They all help.

Neither Tony nor Bucky are alone in making sure the Avengers don’t go up in flames for a second time which is apparently a possibility given how often Barton and the Witch insist on playing with fire.

Ever since the divorce, bitter and angry and with no one to blame but himself, Barton’s been an emotionally loose cannon, and the Witch happens to like playing with matches.

It’s a combination that doesn’t bode well for a lot of reasons; when he walks in on Tony using BARF, it’s for something Bucky hadn’t even considered:

Tony had lost his son, and the Witch – the Witch had sent him spiraling.

And it isn’t new, what she does – what she did – to Tony, to Bucky.

Because the fifth and final misconception about Bucky’s memory is that he doesn’t really have one.

He has dreams, and unaccounted nostalgia, and muscle memory to fall back on, but actual recollections are apparently beyond him.

Except they’re not.

Because of all the people he remembers during his time with Hydra, and the Chair, it’s her.

The red mist that brews around her, like a haze of all the blood she’s spilled; the way her gaze would crackle and flash like tiny sparks from a flint while the skin around her eyes with pinch with her delight; the whiteness of her teeth, bared and grinning as she found a new way to drive someone insane; her laughter as they – he – screamed.

Innocence is an easy mask to wear when you’re as docile and sweet looking as she is, it’s why in terms of weapons, she’d been Hydra’s favourite, a fact she was well aware of, a fact she used to remind the others – the henchmen, the politicians and scientists in Hydra’s pockets, _Bucky_ – that she was to be feared, that she was powerful.

Bucky had always wondered why Steve could recite her personal history as fluidly as he does – because Steve knows what she’s capable of no matter how much he pretends otherwise – he knows what she’s done, if not to Bucky, then at least to Tony – and he’s let her get away with it.

Correction, Steve’s _letting her get away with it._

When BARF’s barriers drop, Tony’s on his knees and the breaths he takes are ragged and awful. Over his pained exhales, Friday soothingly informs them of the time, the date, the weather, the location; that Bucky’s in the room, that Tony is safe.

When Bucky touches him, Tony’s so tense it’s like he’s frozen stiff even as miniscule tremors shiver their way up and down his muscles; his shirt is soaked with sweat, mixed with the tears that fall silently down his cheeks as he clutches at his head and begs for it to _stop, God please, make it stop._

This isn’t an old wound, this hasn’t even begun to heal.

 “Antoshka, Antoshka,” he croons, folding himself around the other man; as if trying to keep Tony from falling apart, as if Bucky could be a barrier against all the things Tony’s forced himself to experience in a bid to move on from them because this – this Bucky remembers – this is how the Witch had left them all – this is how she’d left Bucky time and time again.

“I’m here,” he says, low and quiet, “I’m here, you’re safe. I promise. I’ll keep you safe.”

Tony looks up red rimmed, terror making his eyes fever bright with an aching sort of sadness that dims it at the same time.

And Bucky remembers, of all the things that could possibly happen to him now, he will remember this; he has no intention of forgetting.

Every misconception Steve’s ever had about him turns out to be exactly what he needs when almost everyone – save Tony – believes it too.

The Witch is like a giggling school girl under his attention with his smooth charm, the dimple at his cheek, Steve shakes his head in amusement and tells everyone he should’ve known this would happen.

When the Witch is standing in BARF, surrounded by all the ghosts she’s made and all the people she’s hurt – Bruce, Tony, and Bucky to name a few – and how she’d done it, how she’d enjoyed it – he returns Steve’s stricken expression from across the room as Steve hears the memory of himself tell the Witch that _it doesn’t matter, none of it does_ , I  _forgive you._

In a bid to redirect BARF, and save what little of her reputation still stands with everyone watching in horrified silence, the memory before them shifts and changes, to the Witch in her room in Wakanda; watching video footage that shouldn't even exist but does, of the Bunker, of the fight – watching Steve chip-chip-chip away at Tony’s chest with Howard's shield as Maria cries out one final time.

 Bucky tightens his hand around Tony’s shaking one, watching as Steve crumbles and Wanda rages in the cage he, Friday and Vision have turned BARF into, and thinks: _I remember what I did, do you?_

**Author's Note:**

> This was a result of some discourse in the comment section of "No Vacancy" and while I didn't completely destroy Wanda as I would've liked mainly because I struggled to find a way to do it differently than the other times I've wrecked her, I did want to give it a try so huge thanks to White_Rabbits_Clock and chibi_luna_chan for the inspiration. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Click here if you want to find out more about my work](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


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